Proton rocket lifts off with Yamal 601 communications satellite

On its first launch of the year, a Russian-made Proton rocket lifted off Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with a French-built, Russian-owned communications satellite. The 191-foot-tall (58-meter) Proton rocket lifted off at 1742 GMT (1:42 p.m. EDT; 10:42 p.m. Baikonur time) Thursday to carry the Yamal 601 spacecraft toward a perch in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. Mounted on a mobile rail transporter, the Proton rocket, its Breeze M upper stage and the Yamal 601 communications satellite departed a hangar at the Central Asia space base around sunrise Monday. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 30)